SPbU’s students “taught” the walls to fight with harmful gases and bacteria

SPbU’s students “taught” the walls to fight with harmful gases and bacteria

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Published: 11 April 2017

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Self-cleaning walls — a fantastic idea, as it may appear at first sight, which SPbU’s students are determined to realize in the “Start-Up SPbU”, with their project “Multifunctional photo-active coatings for interior decorations”.

The secret lies in the photo-active particles which prevent bacteria from spreading and clean the air by absorbing sunlight. You can use an innovative coating on tiles, paintings, plasterboards and other construction and building materials for walls and ceilings and enjoy an anti-bacterial effect for 5-7 years. Besides, the composition is transparent and it will not change the colour of the materials.

“This technology will solve our problems in the big cities, —said the captain of the team, post-graduate student Anton Maevskii. — It will clean the air, combat unpleasant scents and prevent infections from spreading, in the hospitals particularly”.

The idea is now developed by five students: Anton Meavskii and Petr Murzin, post-graduate students in Physics, Ekaterina Volkova, a post-graduate student in Biological Sciences, Iulia Bogacheva, a graduate student in Management and Anastasiia Laptenkova, under-graduate student in Chemistry. Testing physical and chemical properties of the innovative coating revealed that it is especially efficient in preventing bacteria from spreading when absorbing sunlight, and it decreases a concentration of а polluting gasses by 25-30%.

By the final stage of the competition, the team is planning to advance the technique to coat building and construction materials, test it and start to apply for a patent. The technology will be especially popular with schools, kindergartens, hospitals, restaurants, business centres and health-oriented people, the researchers said. The paint materials producers may benefit as well.

“We are planning to supply the composition with the paints, — said Anastasiia Laptenkova. — Whatever the materials you are using for interior decoration, you can use our coating for finishing the walls and ceilings. The production of our composition will be easily incorporated into the production of the paint materials”.